Adhesive fillets are used in applications such as aircraft stiffeners. For example, stiffeners with hat-shaped cross sections are often attached to the interior surface of aircraft skins in order to provide improved mechanical properties. The adhesive fillets are positioned at interior corners where the stiffeners meet the aircraft skin.
Conventionally, such adhesive fillets have been manually formed into rod shapes by hand-rolling an adhesive sheet, followed by consolidation in a mandrel under heat and vacuum. Each adhesive rod takes several minutes to form, and the hand-rolled adhesive rods tend to have inconsistent shapes and quality.
The present invention has been developed in view of the foregoing and to address other deficiencies of the prior art.